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Pair Shot to Death
NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. (AP) - August 13, 2003 — The daughter of New Jersey's deposed poet laureate, Amiri Baraka, and a friend were shot to death in a central New Jersey home, authorities said Wednesday.

The bodies of Shani Baraka, 31, and Rayshon Holmes, 30, were discovered Tuesday just after 11:30 p.m. in the Piscataway home that Shani Baraka shared with her sister, according to Middlesex County Prosecutor Bruce Kaplan. Both were shot several times in the head and body, he said.

Police were searching for Shani Baraka'a brother-in-law, whose name is James Coleman but who also goes by Ibn El-Amin Pasha, Kaplan said. Coleman is the estranged husband of Wanda Pasha, Shani Baraka's sister.

Coleman was not called a suspect. "We are looking to speak to anyone who has any information," Kaplan said. Amiri Baraka, in a telephone interview from his Newark home, said Wanda Pasha made at least 12 domestic violence complaints against Coleman, from whom she separated in February.

"This guy is a crazy person," Amiri Baraka said of Coleman, adding that Wanda was in Las Vegas at the time of the shootings.

Kaplan, who described Coleman as a "transient" who stayed mostly in the Newark area, said a restraining order was issued against Coleman on April 27.

On July 2, Coleman pointed a gun at Pasha's head and threatened to kill her, according to a complaint filed with Piscataway police. Coleman was never served with either complaint and has been considered a fugitive since July, Kaplan said.

The prosecutor would not immediately say how many times police had been called to the home. "We're still in the preliminary stages of a very active investigation," Kaplan said.

The exact cause of death and details about the gun used to kill the women would be available after an autopsy, Kaplan said. By late Wednesday afternoon, investigators were also trying to determine a motive. "There was domestic violence, there was an aggravated assault complaint. What was going through the minds of the victims, unfortunately we don't know," Kaplan said.

The last person to have contact with both women was Pasha, who spoke to them Monday night, the prosecutor said.

Pasha called police Tuesday after a family friend alerted her. The friend visited the home to walk Pasha's pit bull, finding the bodies in the family room.

Missing from the house were Shani Baraka's 2003 Mercedes Benz sports car and a sports utility vehicle owned by Holmes, Kaplan said.

Shani Baraka was a teacher at Vailsburg Middle School in Newark and the assistant basketball coach at Malcolm X. Shabazz High School in Newark, her father said. Holmes was a single mother of an 8-year-old boy.

Amiri Baraka's post as poet laureate was eliminated last month after he wrote a poem suggesting that Israel had advance knowledge of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Investigators do not believe the uproar over that poem had anything to do with the homicide.

"We have no reason to believe that's a factor," Kaplan said.

(Copyright 2003 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)